1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a screw rod forming machine which not only forms the screw thread of the screw rod and trims the rough edge of the screw thread, but also forms grooves and key slots on the screw rod.
2. Related Art
The conventional rolling machine is a single process machine, which can only forms the screw threads on the screw rod. Therefore, after the screw threads have been formed on the screw rod, the screw rod with screw threads has to be taken off from the rolling machine to be further chamfered by a machine doing the trimming process, and the machining process of the screw rod with screw threads will finally be done.
Since the conventional machining process of producing the screw rod with screw threads is complicated and relies on human labor, which increases the cost and has the drawback of low yield, the applicant of the present invention applied a new design patent “screw rod forming machine” for Taiwan with application number M408429, which improves and solves problems of the conventional screw rod machining process. The screw rod forming machine includes a base unit, a straight moving unit, a lateral moving unit, a spindle unit, a platform, a clip unit, a lifting/lowering unit, and a second processing unit. After an unprocessed material forms a screw thread by a screw thread processing knife tool on the spindle unit, a second processing unit is used to smoothen the rough edge of the screw thread. By the automatic machining operated by the computer, the advantages of quick manufacturing and human labor saving can be achieved.
The aforementioned screw rod forming machine overcomes the problem of trimming rough edge of the screw thread by human labor. However, since the lead angle chamfering tool of the second processing unit used for trimming the rough edge of the screw thread is a tooth discoid shaped tool which is hung on one side of the screw rod forming machine, it is very easy for the user to touch the blade of the tool when operating the tool, and thus impedes working. Besides, the tooth discoid shaped tool is only limited to chamfer the lead angle, and no other works the tooth discoid can do.
Therefore, the applicant of the present invention also applied a new design patent “screw rod forming machine” for Taiwan with patent application number M462634 (related application: Japan new design patent application No. 2013-003373; China new design patent application No. 201320312842.1) to solve the aforementioned problem. As shown in FIG. 18, the second processing knife tool 1 is hidden under the vertical power unit 2 in a vertical direction. By this arrangement, the worker cannot easily touch the second processing knife tool 1 when offloading the unprocessed material on the platform, thereby overcoming the problem caused in the previous model of the screw rod forming machine.
After practical operating, it has been found that the new design patent M462634 has the following drawbacks: when processing all sizes of unprocessed materials, the spindle unit 3 and the second processing unit 7 are disposed on the straight moving unit 4 in a relatively fixed position. Even if both of the spindle unit 3 and the second processing unit 7 can move in a front/back direction by the straight moving unit 4, the spindle unit 3 and the second processing unit 7 should move simultaneously, which leads to unable to do relative front/back movement. Thus, when the sizes of the unprocessed materials become bigger, the power unit 2 can no longer do the machining works on the center of the unprocessed materials. The bigger sizes the unprocessed materials are, the more serious the deviation can be. And also, since the second processing unit 7 is fixed relative to the spindle unit 3, the second processing unit 7 cannot do the front/back processing to the unprocessed material.
Moreover, as shown in FIG. 20, the spindle unit 3 can be adjusted to an upright position shown in FIG. 21 by an indexing plate 5 to do lateral processing. However, directly operating the lever (not shown in the figures.) of the axis 6 to rotate the spindle unit 3 can be impeded by being blocked by the second processing unit 7 (as shown in FIG. 19). The conventional way, as shown in FIG. 20, is to release all the bolts 8 of the lifting/lowering unit 9 to turn the lifting/lowering unit 9 to another direction, and also turns the second processing unit 7 to face to a side. After that, the spindle unit 3 can be turned to the upright position as shown in FIG. 21. Therefore, in order to turn the direction of the spindle unit 3, complicated steps such as releasing or tightening the bolts 8, turning the direction of the second processing unit 7, etc., are necessary, which can be very inconvenient and time consuming, and should be operated by human being, and is unable to be done automatically.